Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
Nat's eyebrows rose in question as the woman insisted that she was fine, and sounding about as convincing as his sister when she was in a mood, though he didn't press the matter. He followed her gaze to the horse again, and looked back at woman as she spoke again. "I'm Nat." He replied with a smile, which turned into a grin at the mention of horse shows. "Well... technically, I had signed up as an exercise rider for Blue Acres, but when asked if I wanted to accompany the riders to the show, I couldn't say no." And going as a groom and runner, let him know that he had no intention of ever actually competing.
He glanced back at the horse, thinking about her earlier words. "Was the ghost you thought you saw a friendly one?" Yeah, bad joke - the movie wasn't even that memorable - but he still wasn't sure she was as fine as she said she was.
"Any particular reason or just in need of a drinking buddy?" Nat pulled a face, trying to work out how to word his answer so he didn't sound like he was part of a cult. "We never had any in the house as we grew up, were homeschooled until we... uh, left. So really never had the encouragement from peers, as I hear most people get into drinks." There were also lectures as they grew up about the sins their mother had committed with alcohol and drugs, but that was a story for another day... like never. "Well, if you ever find a spare moment and want someone to take you out for an OJ, let me know..." He smiled and shrugged. "I might take you up on that offer, some day." Though was this the kind of person he wanted to go out drinking with? God only knew!
His brows quirked at the laugh. "I wish you the best of luck with that." He laughed too, knowing that he'd need a lot of luck trying to talk any sense into his sister. Dylan often forgot that only a couple of hours separated their ages, not years - as she seemed to think at times, and then she still did as she wanted. "Bible talk?" He shrugged. "It's a very long story." Was all he offered.
"Every morning you say..." He laughed and shook his head, he could almost see the wheel turning in the man's head. "Yup, every morning. Someday's there are two boxes, one with sweet things and the other with savoury. And no two days are alike." It really made up for the fact that they couldn't bake. Dylan was great at cooking and cleaning, but her skills as a pastry chef sucked. There again, Nat could burn a pot of water, so he really couldn't comment about his sister's skills. "Oh that? just a bit of fun, keeps me out of mischief, believe it or not." Nat sat back with a frown, his hands moving as he tried to mentally work through what the other man had said. "You create mischief to stay out of mischief? Okay." He laughed and shook his head, and not for the first time did he wonder what his life would be like if they have grown up in a "normal" home.
After checking the board to see who he was assigned to exercise that evening, Nat took the mare's halter and lead from the hook outside her stall and headed out to the pasture where she was grazing.
Being assigned a schoolmistress to exercise came with it's pros and cons. The pros: the horse wouldn't be as likely to pull any stunts to remove him from her back - there were enough horses around the stable that were happy enough to do just that - and the horse was old enough that he didn't need to worry about teaching her bad habits. The cons: Belou knew all the tricks to avoid being caught - as she was demonstrating by playing catch me if you can in the pasture while Nat was shadowing the mare with the halter behind his back. "If you just let me catch you, I'll give you a good workout in the arena, and then you can go in for your dinner." He reasoned with the horse as he dug into his pocket, grinning when he found the rest of a polo roll. "Yum" He said as he pulled it out and ripped the paper off and popped one in his mouth. "Really? Even the idea of a mint doesn't entice you?" He sighed as the mare didn't even flick and ear in his direction, rather she turned her back on him, flicking her tail. "Is that horse-talk for flipping the bird?"
"You should get out more," Nat shrugged. "I mean that, the town's pretty decent, you should get out for a drink or something, ya know?" He grinned and shrugged again. "I've never had a drink... an alcoholic one anywho." Once said, he wondered if that was something he probably shouldn't have mentioned but it was too late now. "And, between exercising horses and working as a groundskeeper here, I like heading home at the end of the day and crashing." Plus, he liked keeping to himself, the less people that saw him, the less people there were to mention meeting him and the less chance of word making its way back to where they had run from.
"I won't promise, but I'll try my very best?" His brow arched as he tried to work out how much of this man's word he should believe and he shrugged. "I'm thinking that I should be having this discussion with my sister." Not that she would take any more heed to his warning than Leo was, as she'd just remind him that he wasn't her keeper.
"Just checking, most people aren't quite as gracious when they get stuck in one of my pranks - not unless it's revenge." Nat grinned and bowed. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." At least that was one of the nicer scriptures, and the ones on revenge were all about the wrath of god, and he wasn't going there. "So you definitely didn't make these then? Because they're amazing." He laughed and shook his head. "There's a fresh box here every morning." He offered, and the sugar hit from whatever was in the box was a great way to start the day, and they were so much sweeter than what Dylan knew how to make. "I can't lie, our house is the same anyway, none of us men can cook, or not as well as the girls anyway, and certainly not me. Cook up a prank, that's more my thing." Nat's brows shot up, though part of him was pleased that how they were raised was a relative normality for people that were... well... normal.
He walked over and sat on one of the armchairs, only thinking about the glitter after it was too late to do anything about it. "Why the pranks?" He asked, genuinely curious about the why.
"I'm guessing you must have met my sister, Lily, by now? I grew up facing that scary bossy boots, ain't nothing gonna put the fear of God in me worse than she can." Nat shook his head, though he frowned a little as he wondered why people talked about the fear of God, it was fire and brimstone they were taught to fear, if they went against the teachings of the bible, not to fear the Almighty himself. He shook his head as he returned to the here and now. "No, Sir. Unlike like my sister, this place is pretty much the only place I go between where we live and the store."
"Oh well in that case she seems right up my alley - I do loooove to influence." Nat laughed and shook his head, knowing that this could be the start of something terrible. "Just... don't influence her too much." He shrugged, the last thing he needed was his twin to think it was fun to drop buckets of glitter on unsuspecting people.
"This isn't retaliation is it? Some salt cookies or something just incase you need to get someone back for something?" Nat burst out laughing as he took a biscuit himself and broke it in half easily. "Trust me. If I made this, it would be the weight of a brick and work well as hockey puck." He shrugged, not at all ashamed in his lack of backing abilities. "Where we grew up, females did all the cooking and cleaning and worked and kept the yard tidy." The fact that they were here so that Dylan could get a degree in business management would have them both strapped, if their grandmother ever found them. "Dyl tried to teach me to bake, and the result would have ended with us both needing a visit to the dentist."
With a little free time on his hands, Nat hadn't wanted to sit around the flat. Not sure what exactly he wanted to do with himself, he was more than a little surprised to find himself at the sale yards, as he really had no intention of buying his own horse - he was happy enough exercising other people 's horses and busy enough working on the grounds of Blue Acres.
He walked around the yards, looking at the different horses, wondering the history of some and seeing that others were going to be a lot of work to whoever took them home. Not that he was an expert on horses or anything. If he was going to buy a horse, he guessed that he'd want to get one of the ones who looked like they would be troublemakers... afterall, he'd handled his twin as they grew up, couldn't be that different from handling a horse, right?
He caught his balance when someone stumbled into him and placed his hands on her arms to make sure she had her feet under her. "Its not a problem, Ma'am" He assured her with a soft smile, concerned by her pale complexion. "Are you okay?"
"I'll take my chances." Nat gave a low whistle and shook his head in sympathy for the other man. "Yeah, good luck with that." He grinned, mostly because he knew, from the talk of the barn, that Naomi was fiercely protective of Cara, and he wouldn't want to get on Naomi's bad side.
"That's a fair warning to give. I hope to run into her at some poin-" Nat chuckled as he stepped back, mission accomplished. "Fair play to you, nicely done." He gave an exaggerated bow, before bending over and shaking like a wet dog, brushing his hands vigorously through his hair to try and remove most of it. After all, the floor was already covered in the stuff, he was just adding to the mess, not making one. "As for the case of my sister, I have no doubt that you'll meet at some point. She would have done something like that, should our lives have been... different." He frowned as he thought about what he'd just said. "Maybe her and you would be a bad combination, I doubt she needs your kind of... influence." The Williams siblings were slowly finding themselves, and while he was straight and narrow, it seemed that Dylan was more of the troublemaker kind of person - even while keeping top marks with her uni classes.
He headed over to the counter and washed the glitter from his hands, cupping water in his now clean palms and dropping it over the faucet to clean it of any stray sparkly bits he'd put there, and then grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "Cookie?" He asked as he grabbed the biscuit container and opened it, holding it out to Leo.
"Well then it's your lucky day," Nat quirked a brow, not feeling particularly lucky right now. "Nah, no such thing - anyone will do!" The other brow rose to meet the first and he looked at the ground around him. "You realise that Cara's going to kill you?" He'd met her while exercising the horses, and had been told by the stablehands that she liked to keep the place meticulously tidy.
"Yes, but it suits you!" He pulled a face, knowing that he'd still be trying to get glitter out of his hair for the next week and Dyl was going to have way too much fun with this. "Nice to meet you Nat, I'm Leo. You may have been warned about me, You should have been warned about me." He gave a knowing smile as he shook Leo's hand. "Yes, I have been warned about you. A warning I passed onto my sister, since she rides at your place." He replied as he pulled the man forward and gave him a hug. The bible was big on teaching you to love thy neighbour, plus, if he was going to be covered in glitter, at least he now wasn't the only one. He stepped back, pleased with his caring and sharing attitude. "It's nice to be able to put a face to the name." He leaned forward and scrummed his hand through his wet hair, sending glitter flying though came away with his hands and wrists completely covered now.
Nat paused as he heard a noise above him, but didn't think anything of it, as he was in a barn, and there were always noises here. What if it was a rat? Before he could think any further along that line, he was soaking wet and the cold water was enough to make him draw in a sharp breath. He started coughing as his mouth filled with some kind of powder. "Surprise! You are our 1000 customer! Congratulations!!" He coughed, spitting out the sparkling dust. Wait, sparkling dust?
His brow rose as he looked down at his clothes and the floor around him, everything sparkled like the fancy saddle pads some of the girls at their old yard owned. Freaking glitter! "I get paid to be here, not the other way around." He returned. "Which means you picked the wrong person." He looked down at himself again. "I look like a unicorn has thrown up over me." He was going to need to have a shower, and a human-sized lint roller, before he returned to work. His eyebrow rose as he looked at the man who had appeared, appraising him for a moment. "I'm Nat." He offered with a smile as he held out his hand.
Nat yawned as he headed up to the hayloft, shaking his head to remove the tiredness. He knew that taking on two jobs in one place would work him hard, but once he was used to it, it wouldn't wear on him so much. However, at the moment with the upkeep of the property - even the basics of weeding - and riding half a dozen horses was making him feel like he'd been through the wringer.
At the top of the stairs, he was wondering if he should have left his boots on, but guessed that getting a little hay on his socks wasn't the worst thing that could happen today, and right now, he had fifteen minutes to himself and he wasn't going to spend them in steel-capped boots. He glanced out the window, he could almost feel the distance between himself and Dylan, which wasn't that much really, and after their whole life together in the same house, it felt strange for them to have so much distance between them even if it was only for eight hours a day. He was wondering, again, if he could convince her to ride here.
full name • nathaniel williams nicknames • nat (not nate, there is a difference) age • eighteen birthday • june 21st occupation • horse exerciser and grounds keeper BA gender • male sexuality • straight
the appearance
face claim• callan mcauliffe
identifying features• standing at a little over six feet, nat is well toned from years of physical work. With brown hair (that their gram refers to as dirty blonde) and brown eyes; Tommy isn't a stranger to the puppy-dog look if he thinks that it will help his case. He is normally seen wearing jeans and a shirt - he's not a fan of t-shirts - though a polo shirt will do for mucking around the barn. He will pick boots over shoes any day, though he knows how to dress up if the situation calls for it.
the personality
likes • horses, running, books, peace, spring sunsets dislikes • slackers, sitting still, arguments, church, rules that don't make sense strengths • his ability to remain calm in the toughest situations, he is intellectual and normally only needs to read something once before he understands it, and easily follows verbal instructions weaknesses • his twin, his quiet nature - because he's often overlooked dreams • To get rich and have a farm where kids that are struggling can come and stay, work with horses and know they are safe. fears • their birth parents finding them, dylan following the same path as their mother overall personality • nat is an observer and a mediator. he will get in the middle of people fighting to see if there is a way to talk it out, though he can use his fists if needed, though it takes a long time for him to get to that point. while being tall, he enjoys the fact that most people overlook him because he's so quiet.
the history
father • unknown mother • jasmine williams, 33, unknown siblings • DYLAN WILLIAMS important people • mary williams - grandmother hometown • penzance
overall history • nat and dylan were raised by their grandmother, who was very involved with her church, and because of this, so were the children. they don't know the full story of their mother's past, other than what they have been told by their gram; jasmine strayed from the righteous path she had been set on and had decided to drink and party her way through life, which led to her arriving home as a terrified sixteen year old who was pregnant. her parents took her back in, though she returned to her partying life once the babies were born.
they were six when the only loving person they had, their grandfather, died, and they were completely under the rule of their spare the rod, spoil the child, grandmother. nat learned early that tantrums got them nowhere and learned to control his temper, something he whished his twin would also learn to harness.
after being taught within the church for their entire lives, their only escape from their grandmother was when dylan had decided she wanted riding lessons, so they were both enrolled at a local trusted riding school, run by someone from the church, and while dylan found that barrel racing was her thing, nat found a love for jumping.
on the eve of their eighteenth birthday, he was woken by dylan, who then started shoving clothes into a suitcase, telling them that they had to go. they were both adults now, and they needed to find their own way in the world, but they had to leave while the dragon was sleeping. So, after packing his bag, and shoving them in the back of the old pick-up that they had been given for their sixteenth, the twins headed away from penzance to start a new life.